


spark a blaze and burn higher

by alessandriana



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-04-02 01:40:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4040821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alessandriana/pseuds/alessandriana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Briar tries to be a hero. It doesn't go so well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	spark a blaze and burn higher

**Author's Note:**

> For the hc_bingo May Amnesty Challenge (small fandoms), the prompt _burns_.

It's rare that Briar misses the days back when their magics kept getting mixed up. In fact, it never happens, because he'd have to be right crazy to want to accidentally burn plants again. But right now he really, really wishes he had even just a little bit of Daja's magic left in him, because the house he'd been passing by is evidently on fire, and there are still two people trapped inside. 

_Daja!_ he shouts, as loud as he can, and on the other side of the city he feels her attention snap to his. He lets her see the conflagration through his eyes. _Any advice?_ he asks. Points out the man waving a white towel from one of the upper bedrooms. Wishes, desperately, that he had any of his seed balls with him-- he could grow the plants big enough to grab the people inside-- but he doesn't. He'd just been walking back from a consult at one of the city gardens, and hadn't thought he'd need them. There are plenty of plants around the city he can use as weapons, after all. 

The problem is, here the house is in the middle of a long green lawn, and the only nearby plants are just grass. No way he could get that high enough or strong enough to support the weight of a person, though he sends his magic into it to start, just in case. 

He's glad it's Daja, because Daja doesn't waste time on hysterics. She feels his intention to go in after them and doesn't try to dissuade him, either. She goes quiet for a half second, assessing the building, and then she draws his attention to one spot. _Fire's weaker there,_ she says. _Should hold long enough for you to get up to the second floor._ He can feel her running for the stable in the back of the house. _I'll be there as soon as I can. Stay safe. Don't do anything too stupid._

_Hey, you know me._

_That's why I'm worried,_ she says, dryly. Then stops talking so she can concentrate on running. 

He wastes a moment glancing around for some water to wet himself down with, but there's no sign of a well nearby, and the fire brigades are several minutes away.

He cuts a strip off the bottom of his shirt with one of his knives, ties it around his face, takes a deep breath, and runs towards the building. 

Briar sends his magic roaring into the building ahead of him. The dry wood wants to burn, but he pours his magic into it, calling the green life to it, making it resist the fire. It's hard; the building is old, and the wood has been dead a long time, has forgotten what it's like to be green and growing. He bends his will to it, forces it to remember. He can hear the house groaning under the crackle of the fire. 

The door slams open when he kicks it, and he ducks to avoid any flame, but Daja was right: the fire hasn't reached this part of the house yet and the kitchen-- and the servant's staircase beyond it-- are mostly clear. Smoke covers the ceiling but the air's still clear enough to breathe. 

The second floor's not so good. Third floor is worse. The smoke is so thick he has to keep bent over at the waist just to see under it, and he can hear the roar of the fire and feel the heat radiating from the surrounding walls. His magic keeps it at bay for now, but his magic isn't limitless. 

He makes his way down the hallway, choking and coughing, and calling for the people he'd seen when he manages a breath. There's no answer, so he starts trying doors. 

_Test the doors before you open them,_ Daja orders, just as he puts his hand on the first handle. It's scalding hot under his hand, and he yanks it back. _That means there's fire behind it,_ she explains. _Don't open it, whatever you do, or the air will pull the fire into the hallway with you, and you'll die._

 _Got it._ The next door is hot as well, but the one after that is only medium warm, so he cracks the door an inch and glances inside. It's a bedroom, but empty. He closes the door and moves on. 

Door after door is like that, and he curses the names of the idiot money-bags who built this house so large, and with so many flammable things in it. He's starting to feel lightheaded, like he can't get a good breath. And the fire is wearing down his magic. The wood is dead and so it doesn't hurt when it burns-- not as much as it could, leastways-- but he's running out of strength to pump into it. 

_Idiot. Why didn't you just ask? Here._ It's Sandry, and the cool rush of her magic flows into him, filling up what he's used. (He's still not quite used to being able to draw off them at will.) He thanks her wordlessly, throwing another door open. 

_I'm pulling a thunderstorm in from across the bay,_ Tris said, two day's distant, up north chasing rumors of a mage who can see on the wind. Unconsciously Briar presses his hand to the circular scar in the middle of his palm. She'd've been too far away to help before they'd absorbed their thread circle, but their range has increased significantly since then. 

_Thanks,_ he sends at both of them, conserving his breath even in mind-speech. 

The next room has started to burn slowly, fire creeping along one wall. It seems empty, and he's about to close this door when he pauses. Looks across the room, out the window. He can see the local fire brigade finally, _finally_ showing up. But that's not what grabs his attention. Tied to the railing of the room is a white towel. 

There's no sign of the two people, though. 

He makes his decision, and steps inside. Closes the door behind him, though the window is open, and the air is feeding the flames. The heat is higher here, and he feels like his lungs are being seared with every breath. He pours his power into the wall, and the fire slows but doesn't stop.

It'll have to do.

There's a bed on the opposite wall. He wastes precious moments checking around it and under it, but there's no one there. It's only after another look around the room that he spots the door in the corner, nearly hidden by a decorative screen and the smoke in the air. 

He nearly sobs in relief when he finds the man and his three year-old daughter curled up together in the metal tub in the washroom. They both look utterly astonished to see him appear out of the smoke and flame.

He has to clear his throat twice before he can get any sound. "You need to come with me!" he shouts, voice hoarse and painful from the smoke, muffled by the mask. "I can get you out!"

They just huddle deeper into the curve of the tub, eyes wide and terrified. There's no time for this. Reaching in, he grabs the girl from her father's grip before he can anticipate it, knowing that where she goes, he'll follow. 

Sure enough, the man leaps out of the tub, reaching for his daughter. Briar lets him take her, a firm hand in the middle of the man's shoulder blades propelling him towards the door back out to the hallway. 

Of course, that's when the flames start licking up the door, too. 

"Shit," Briar says, staring blankly. The fire must have been creeping up behind him, waiting for him to be distracted. He pulls more strength from Sandry and throws it at the door, but there's nothing there for it to catch in anymore-- the wood is too dead. 

Out the window it is, then. His initial thought is to tie the bedsheets together and lower the others down them, but a quick glance tells him the bed, too, is now on fire. 

He reaches for the grass below. It had continued growing off the magic he'd given previously, and was now two feet high. If he can just grow it big enough, it will at least provide a soft landing for them... 

_Briar. I'm here._ He lets out a breath of relief, nearly a sob, as Daja's voice comes, then immediately starts coughing. He can barely catch his breath. The open window helps pull the smoke out of the room, but there's always more to follow it. 

Daja's next words make him nearly forget the lack of air. _I brought your seed balls._

_Throw them under the window! The one with the towel!_

Daja has a good arm on her, and her aim is true; the seed balls land right under the window, and he pours every last ounce of his magic into them. Forces down the thorns they want to make, gives them roots, makes them stretch tall for the window. 

"You've got to go out the window!" Briar yells into the man's ear, shoving at him until he's standing in front of it. The sky outside is starting to darken, black storm clouds coming in, and he can taste the rain in the air. Tris's magic arcs across every inch of it. The man is shaking in fear-- not that Briar can fault him for that, because so is he-- but he's also shaking his head, which is not what Briar wants to see. His daughter has her arms wrapped around his neck like a clinging vine, her face tucked into his shoulder and eyes squeezed closed. 

"I can't!" The man shouts back. "It's too high-- she'll be hurt--!"

"Better hurt than dead, you stupid bleater!" Briar waves his hand at the sheet of flame the far wall is rapidly becoming. "Or didn't you notice there's no other way out?"

Briar advances on the man, and his expression must be something, because the man retreats, still shaking his head, but looking almost as terrified of Briar as of the fire. Which is just fine with Briar, because as he finally backs up against the windowsill, his vines reach the top, grab the man around the waist, and haul him and his daughter over the edge, screaming. 

Briar leans over to watch and make sure they both make it safe down-- the vines aren't established enough to carry the weight of all three of them, he'll have to wait until they're down before he can go down himself-- which is why he doesn't notice the creaking and groaning until the floor underneath him tilts abruptly. He grabs for the windowsill but misses and starts rolling towards the back of the room, where the floor has started collapsing into itself. He digs fingernails into the carpet and manages to stop the slide for a moment. 

_Briar!_ Daja shouts. 

_Still alive!_ he sends back, trembling as he clings to the floor.

 _I'm coming in for you,_ she says, her own fear underlying the calm promise of her words.

The bed disappears into a new hole in the floor. The heat from below is like the heat from Daja's furnace.

_Better hurry!_

He can't make it back to the window, the angle is too great, and there's nothing to pull himself up on. But the door to the washroom is right there, if he jumps carefully. If the floor on the other side of the hole holds. 

Sitting there and thinking about it isn't going to do him any good, so he just goes for it. The floor holds. The bathroom door opens. The tub is still there in the middle. He jumps into it, huddles down at the bottom and covers his head. The porcelain is cooler than he expects, resisting the heat, though the air itself is searingly hot. There's a little bit of water left at the bottom, and he spares a moment to splash it over the cloth on his face, which helps temporarily with the smoke.

The groan of wood burnt past its ability to hold together fills the air. He can feel the wood cracking underneath him. The tub tilts slightly. 

"DAJA!" he shrieks, both out loud and mentally. 

_Briar!_ all three of the girls shout back, and he can feel their terror. 

Then the floor breaks, and the tub falls through. 

***

They tell him later that he was only down there for a minute at most. The rain kept the fire down to a manageable level and Daja walked right through the flames and plucked him out from where he and the tub had landed, mostly intact, on the first floor. 

He remembers very little of it. Just flashes of flickering flame, and Daja's shoulder jabbing into his stomach as he tried desperately to breathe. Then there's a great stretch of nothingness. 

He wakes up, once, to someone holding him upright as he coughs and coughs, spitting up great gobs of black stuff into a bowl. Someone holds a cup up to his mouth and the liquid inside eases the coughing somewhat, lets him breathe easier. He thinks the person might be Rosethorn. 

Someone begins to cut away his shirt where it's sticking to his skin. It hurts so much he screams and passes out.

Then he's lying on his stomach in a bed. The sheets are white and smooth against his skin. He hurts in the distant kind of way that means he is quite thoroughly medicated. His breathing is still rough, but better than it was. 

He can hear the steady clack-clack of knitting needles nearby, though just out view. Experimentally, he tries to lift his head to see who is there.

He immediately has to drop it back down again, panting, as every inch of his back protests. 

He must have made some sort of noise, because the clacking noise stops, and he hears Lark's voice say, "Briar, my dear, please don't do that. Rosethorn has given me strict instructions about what I am and am not allowed to let you do right now, and I'm afraid that moving simply isn't one of those things." 

He huffs out just the barest breath of a laugh. "How long--?" he manages, which immediately sets him off to coughing again, curling into his stomach against the pain. It lasts a long time, and at the end he's so exhausted he collapses back onto his stomach, trembling. 

Lark is there, pushing a cup with a straw to his mouth, and he swallows the medicine down gratefully. As it begins to take effect, she says, "Two days." She rests a hand on the back of his head. "Now go back to sleep, dearest. You'll feel better when you wake up next." 

He does as she orders. 

***

The next time he wakes up, it's because someone is changing the bandages on his back. 

He whimpers, clutching at the bedding underneath him, and the hands still for a moment. 

"Well, well. Decided to join us, have you?" Rosethorn's voice, dry and acerbic, is in direct contrast to the gentleness of her hands, as she sets aside her bandages and picks a cup off the side table, pressing the straw to his mouth. "How are you feeling?" 

He drinks half the glass, then pauses for air. He has to clear his throat twice just to get any sound out, and even then his voice is barely more than a whisper. "Like I just fell through three stories of burning house in a tub."

She snorts, and presses the straw back to his mouth. "Well, your memory is fine, I see. But there's no 'just' about it-- you've been out four days." 

He's lost another two days, then. He can't bring himself to care. Based on how he's feeling now, he's just as happy to stay unconscious through as much of his recovery as he possibly can. 

She sets the cup aside once he finishes it, then goes back to changing his bandages. The next strip doesn't want to come off, so she soaks it in lukewarm water before pulling it off gently. He has to bite down on his lip to keep from screaming.

"How bad's it?" he asks, when he can breath again. 

She keeps working. "Not as bad as it could have been," she says tartly, with the words 'you idiot' heavily implied. It comes as a welcome relief. If she's being tetchy at him, he knows he can't be hurt too bad. "The smoke did the worst of it. The healer's been keeping you under so she can work on your lungs without you panicking because you can't breathe."

Briar takes a breath, testing. His lungs do feel better than the last time he'd woken up. Still scratchy and like he can't quite get enough air, but the constant urge to cough has gone down. 

"As for this," she says, beginning work on another strip, "you got lucky. Very lucky. You landed in an area that hadn't completely gone up in flames yet. That tub you rode in was good thick porcelain over steel, and it kept the heat low enough that you were only lightly toasted where your back was pressed against the tub, not burnt to a crisp. And Daja was close enough to get you out quickly." She pauses. "There will be some scarring, but you should be able to regain your full range of motion as long as you're willing to work at it."

He lets out a breath, relief making him shaky. As long as he'll be able to go back to doing his work, he'll be fine. Scarring he doesn't care about. 

"Speaking of Daj', and the girls..." He's surprised he hasn't heard from them yet.

She snorts. "Think you can turn your head?" she asks, out of the blue sky. He's not sure, but gives it a shot anyways. It hurts, and leaves him gasping, but it's worth it when he sees the bed next to his. Though it's hardly big enough for one person, same as the one he's in, all three of the girls have somehow fit themselves onto it and are asleep, breathing softly. Daja's on the bottom, Tris curled into her side with her arm thrown over her middle, and Sandry has somehow thrown herself over the top of both of them, head tucked under Daja's chin. His heart clenches, and he has to swallow back an almost painful relief. 

"They've been there this whole time," Rosethorn says. 

"Tris?" he whispers. 

"Turned around as soon as she knew what was happening. Didn't stop until she got here, two days ago."

He squeezes his eyes shut against the lump in his throat. Not that he didn't know they loved him, but... there's something about seeing it. About seeing them, curled up together in a too-small bed at his side just because they can't bear to be further away. 

He can't see Tris's face, but Daja's looks unhappy, fine lines across her forehead where she's scowling in her sleep, and Sandry's hand is clenched tightly in the fabric over Daja's heart. 

He wishes he could join them, but he can't, so instead he reaches out with his magic. It's exhausting, and painful, and he's not sure he could have done it if they'd been any further away, but he manages to make the connection, brushing against the edges of their minds, soothing. 

They don't wake-- he can tell they're exhausted-- but Sandry's hand loosens its grip, and Daja's face smooths out. Tris grumbles and settles deeper into the curve of Daja's arm. 

He's starting to fade. But there's one more thing he has to know. "The dad and his kid?"

He can't see Rosethorn's face, but he can tell from the quality of the silence that her expression has softened. Her voice, when she answers, confirms it. "They're fine," she says. "They breathed in too much smoke, like you, but the healers are taking care of it. They've asked to see you once you're better."

He sighs and sinks into the bed, relief pressing down on him. His eyelids feel heavy, like someone tied weights to them when he wasn't looking. Lakik, probably... it was something the trickster god would do... 

"Go back to sleep," Rosethorn orders. He hears cloth shift and feels her hand on his, squeezing. It's one of the few places on him that doesn't hurt. "And for the record... that was an incredibly stupid thing to do, my boy." 

He grins a little bit to himself, even as his eyes shut of their own accord. He can hear, underneath the words, what she's actually saying. 

With the girls' sleeping minds pressing softly at the edge of his own, he slides under, pain fading with consciousness. It'll be there when he wakes up, but so will the girls, and Rosethorn, and Lark.

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Natalie Merchant's _This House is on Fire_.
> 
>  
> 
> _It's all gonna catch like a house on fire_  
>  Spark an evil blaze and burn higher


End file.
